


Dreaming in Digital - 2

by cyborgharpy



Series: Dreaming in Digital [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dream Sex, F/M, I have no idea what I'm doing and that's okay, the existential crisis of writing sex from the male viewpoint and failing horribly at it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 01:19:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14533563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyborgharpy/pseuds/cyborgharpy
Summary: Companion kink forEnterprisingly'sPlay To Win.I wrote this about two months ago, but it sucked then and it hopefully sucks less now.It's the sequel to what was originally porn written for the sake of feels. I had a hard time writing this because every single one of Cait's updates has been life-altering in its sincerity and her attention to detail. She's a gift in my life and I believe in many of yours. I'm grateful for her allowing me to edit and send her shitty headcanons at 1 am.And yes, this is one of them.





	Dreaming in Digital - 2

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Enterprisingly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enterprisingly/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Play To Win](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13535535) by [Enterprisingly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enterprisingly/pseuds/Enterprisingly). 



Ben wakes up with his face in a woman’s hair. It takes a few seconds to unlock this impossibility. Even if everything is fogged from the night of drinking before, Rey is clear and closer than she’s ever been. They’re in bed in the Marriott, and she smells like cherry blossoms in spring. It’s been a long time since he’s experienced flowering trees without them drenched in New York City’s miasma of exhaust and diners. This is better.

He’s immediately self-conscious of his arms curled around her. Their faces are turned in the same direction, sharing the same uncomfortable pillow. The wall art just over her shoulder depicting three figures dancing?—leaping?—jumping? on a shoreline is the only thing to focus on besides the reality of her warm body curved into his in an s-shape. Her feet are twining about his upper calves and the back of her head is firmly against his collarbone. She’s a puzzle piece that fits perfectly. 

Her torso is beneath his arm, heaving gently with each breath. And then there’s her ass pressed firmly into his upper thighs and . . . of course his dick is harder than it’s ever been in living memory. 

Ben’s absolutely sure she will wake up any second and leap out of bed, screaming. Not because he feels he’s intimidating but because he’s pretty sure she hasn’t been with enough men to understand the natural reaction of one who’s woken up next to the most beautiful woman in competitive gaming. He can’t imagine another idiot touching her, even though she’s too perfect to have lived without the attention of other people. He can only hope that, like him, she just never felt close enough with another person to let them as near emotionally.

He extricates himself as if he were trying to avoid waking Smaug in the depths of the Lonely Mountain. The wall art is replaced by the dresser, with one of those tiny coffee makers that no one uses because what hotel has good single-serving coffee and why would you bother, anyway? The natural light is shifting across the room, reflecting off the stadium right outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. Ben sighs and smiles as he listens to her snoring resume.

Still, it takes her less than a minute to rouse from her deep sleep with a noise in her throat that’s either protesting the light, or his leaving her. He hopes it’s the latter. Rey’s face turns towards him, and the morning sun reaches across her nose and the round curve of her cheek. He doesn’t remember looking back at her, but once he does he can’t look away.

“Ben,” she says, blinking lazily at him. Streaks of mascara—where she forgot or maybe just failed to wash off—dust her cheekbones. She’s got freckles that don’t show up until she’s close, and this is the closest he’s ever seen them. Ben realizes he will never kiss another woman who _doesn’t_ have freckles, much less be attracted to one now that he’s seen her this way. He probably would have trouble kissing another woman, ever.

“Good morning,” he says, finally. “We slept in.”

“What time is it?” she asks. Beneath the edge of concern is the lilt of her accent; it makes his heart pump like a piston. He always forgets she’s from the far side of the Atlantic until she speaks. When he’d first heard her over chat, he’d been surprised—then smitten. Now her sleep-fried voice is making it difficult to remember his own name.

“We’ll get you to your train,” he says as he looks at her, askance. “Maybe breakfast?”

“Breakfast?” she murmurs her question, pushing an arm through the sheets to rest on his abdomen. Ben holds his breath, praying she doesn’t move her hand lower.

“There’s a place. Crepes,” he forces out, awkwardly. “In the train station.”

“I’m already going to miss practice.” She groans, pulling her hand back to cover her face and wipe at the corners of her eyes. “Bloody hell, Finn’s going to kill me. Unless Poe does it first.”

“Blame me,” he says, dryly. 

He misses the weight of her arm immediately. It’s weird enough being touched, but she’d actually held him. Multiple times—each filed away in his personal memory to dwell on later.

“You needed a break,” he says to the ceiling and her, but more to himself. “You’ve earned it.”

“I needed you, Ben.” When he turns she’s looking at him with half-open, hazel eyes. There’s the green-flecked mountains and valleys of her irises, and then there’s the pitch black of her sleep-wide pupils. They drink in the light, consuming his soul in the process. 

“I mean, I needed your support,” she continues, her gaze flicking to the pillow between them. “You helped me get out of my funk.”

“I’m glad.” He punctuates his words by bringing his hand over to her shoulder—suddenly too self-conscious to touch her. He pats the sheets and rests his fingers lightly there. 

_Bringing it home with the hover-hand_ , he thinks, aware he’s suddenly turned into the biggest fucking nerd in the world. 

“Since I’m late I guess I could stay for a little while longer.” She rubs at the crust in her eyelashes before her fingers move up to bring his palm down to her shoulder. She pulls his hand to her face, and when his fingers touch her neck and ear the smile on her face goes lax and her eyes close. 

_Be cool: don’t lead her on. Collect yourself, Solo._ He breathes out a heavy sigh, staring at her rose-hued lips instead, which are parted to reveal perfect white teeth.

“Not sure how fun it will be, stuck in a boring hotel room with me for a day,” he drawls. “Unless you leave by the fire exit we’re getting recognized as soon as the con zombies’ hangovers wear off.”

“I can think of worse things,” she laughs softly. “Being stuck, I mean.”

“I don’t want to do anything you don’t want to . . .” he is hearing himself saying this more than consciously forming words with his mouth. But Rey’s lashes flutter and close as his hand drifts across her temple and sinks into her tousled hair.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” she murmurs. “I could sleep in a little longer, if you don’t mind.”

Ben is speechless as Rey turns and rolls, her arms pulling into her center. As gentle as it is, the movement knocks the air out of his chest. She buries her face into the pillow and folds back into him with a conscious effort.

“Wake me up in an hour or so?” she asks, her body pressing against his side. “And hold me, please.” 

He concedes. There’s not really a choice here, though he tries to keep his back flat on the bed and wrap his shoulders around her at the same time. He’s thanking the gods for oblique crunches and medicine ball rotations when her hand slides back again to his right hip and tugs insistently at his pants until he positions himself closer.

He buries his face in her neck, not minding the curls tickling his nose and jaw. Minutes slip by, and he can feel her breathing slow and lengthen. She _had_ been on the verge of falling asleep. But his mind is racing, and her breasts beneath his arm overwrite any good intentions he might have had. Maybe this is why, sober and aware, he plants a kiss at the place where her hairline ends. His nose is buried in the small wisps of down that trail beneath the faded, purple shirt she’d borrowed from him. 

Ben wishes he could sink into the center of the earth and never be seen again. He feels like someone who’s stood at Heaven’s gates only to decide at the last minute to turn towards Hell. But that’s when she cranes her head back to bring them together—his chin to her forehead. A hand snakes behind her like a cat reaching through a small opening in a box, finally settling in his hair.

“You awake?” he asks quietly. He’s glad she can’t see him: his face is redder than Mars.

“Can’t sleep when you’re doing that,” she says, muffled by the pillow.

“Sorry.” 

He’s not sorry for kissing her as much as disturbing her. “Are you sure you didn’t dream it?” 

He’s just clumsy or bold enough to brush her ear lobe with his mouth when he says it, ignoring the screaming alarms drilling into his brain. 

“You don’t get to kiss me and just pretend it never happened, you know.” The smile is heavy in her voice, the words conjuring up hours spent, wishing her nearer. 

Last night it had taken an infinity of already-forgotten television for her to inch closer. He hadn’t been able to think of anything else, superseded by the fact that she could have destroyed him just by moving away. That’s when he’d first noticed Rey had a habit of being always present. It was as if someone had hurt her and she was waiting for it to happen in every interaction. She’s not entirely skittish, but getting her to open up is not easy. It’s a reward he has to earn. Fighting for it makes a hard knot form in his throat.

“Maybe you’re still dreaming.”

Involuntarily, he blows warm breaths against her throat. He kisses her neck, his tongue flicking across her skin. It tastes like sea salt mixed with traces of sunscreen or perfume. 

She responds by burying her body deeper into his rigid frame, fingers carding through his hair.

“No. This was how I wanted to be woken up,” she murmurs. 

“Ben?” Her question is an invitation. There’s no holding back, now—but he tries. He wraps an arm around her, pulling her into his chest. He can’t stop himself from burying his face into the top of her head. Her shampoo actually smells like rose now—a strange analog to his grandmother’s soap; it smells like life, like spring in a cleaner, quieter place. 

“You’re breathing like you just ran a marathon,” she says.

“I’ve never really done this,” he says after a moment.

“Kissed a girl?” There’s no unkindness in her voice, just a shared hesitation. 

“Never wanted to be with someone so badly,” he admits, “or so afraid to fuck things up.”

“Same,” Rey says. She hesitates, seeming to consider the weight of what they’ve already committed to by being wrapped in each other’s embrace. “You know, you can always blame me for fucking things up.”

“Never,” he whispers, kissing her neck softly again. His mouth finds the spot where a vein seems to tick in time to his own heartbeat racing in his chest, settling there.

“Then wake me up like you want to, Ben.” 

She grinds her hips into him. It’s a not-so-subtle reminder that she isn’t wearing pants.

Reason leaves him, disappearing in the morning light along with his self-control as she turns against his chest and finds his mouth with her own, full lips. He kisses her as if he’s drowning, and she’s the only air. In his memory she’s been here forever against him, waiting for the moment when they’d finally connected this way.

She’s on her back against his frame and his hands fumble for the edge of her shirt to reach skin. When they drift up beneath the fabric she melts into the bed, her body stretching out like a landscape his callused fingertips can just now conquer. 

Rey moans softly as his fingers brush her hardened nipples beneath the soft cotton. She continues to push into his thighs, deliberately. At this angle and friction he thinks he might not even get the chance to feel her naked against his body without it being embarrassing for them both.

“Rey,” he says, breathlessly. “I want to see you.” 

She laughs but obliges, letting him lift up her shirt to expose her, just as she fights to free him from his own clothing. They end up in a tangled mess punctuated by laughter and soft kisses on what are not what he imagines are the most erotic points of the body: nose, cheeks, chin. But in the end she’s gasping as she finally brings her hand to his bare chest.

Her touch is more perfect than he’d imagined where it meets his skin. She kisses his torso as soon as her mouth can reach it, nose buried in his clavicle. Each press of her lips is gentle and sweet—sending shivers through his core until he’s inarticulate except to murmur her name. 

A surge of fear paralyzes him as her fingers drifts to the waistband of his pants. He catches the exploratory hand to bring it to his face, kissing her palm. 

“You first.”

She’s flushed, eyes bright as she brings hers mouth to his again—unraveling further as he kisses her back. There can’t be anything more perfect than her sleep-heavy breath in his mouth, or her dry lips against his. They had waited so long to kiss one another that every moment feels stolen from time itself.

She’s smiling as she wriggles out of his shirt. The cream dress she’d worn last night had left little to the imagination regarding her body’s shape. There’s no possible way he could have sketched out how she really looked in his mind, she’s much too perfect for his imperfect mind. Her breasts are swallowed by the meat of his palm, indenting along with the pink-brown nipples peaking long before his mouth wraps around them. He takes his time with each curve until he’s discovered every inch of the body in front of him. 

Ben lingers at her breastbone, drawing out small gasps with each gentle foray into her soft skin. Rey’s chest grows flushed, and when her nipples redden with too much attention he trails his mouth lower to the curve of her belly. She’s only a little sheepish as he draws her already-damp cotton panties down her tan, slim legs. He spreads her thighs wider, his left hand drawing up to circle the jut of her hip-bone with errant fingers.

“Have you done this before?”

She has to pull a fist from her mouth to answer, shaking her head with an expression of tentative joy. Her dimple is showing, and it sends electricity through his body as he realizes he’s nurtured the sense of relaxation in her body that has her spread before him now. 

“We’ll take it slow. We have all day, right?“ he says.

All the breath seems to leave her body when his descent takes him out of the reach of her eyes. 

He had no idea she’d be so wet already. She’s tensing beneath him, so he’s gentle with every movement. A lifetime wouldn’t be enough, much less a day, but he learns what she wants through the nails dragging across his scalp, and the way her body closes around the fingers he gently eases into her.

Once he’s found just the right tempo and the right pressure of his tongue, she’s pushing her hips against his hand. Rey moves with the unconscious skill she seems to have in everything. It brings him to alternate between tongue and thumb until she’s half off the bed and crying out.

He doesn’t stop until he feels her peak, her voice drifting away as she buries her face in a pillow again. The muscles in her leg flutter under the weight of his arm—the one he’s stretched out in order to twine his hand with hers.

“Ben,” she gasps, fingers squeezing his as she relaxes beneath him.

“Yes?” He knows he sounds like a cat in the cream. He can’t help it. Helping her come, feeling her rise above her own insecurity and need, makes him invincible. 

“Kiss me.” Rey is coherent only for the time it takes for him to ease up to her face and take her in his arms. Now she’s consuming him with her kiss-swollen mouth, her breasts brushing against his chest as she slips down to explore his body in the same way he’d held hers.

“Are you alright?” It’s the right question to ask as she draws his pants down around his legs and exposes him to the artificially-cold hotel room air.

He’s unable to respond verbally as she traces her fingers down past his belly, exploring his sensitive skin with both her touch and eyes. He thinks of everything but her hand wrapping around him—and dear god, her tongue—as she tentatively takes him into her mouth. But then there’s warmth replacing cold in a breath-stuttering moment of reality. It’s a holy fire, curling his toes and bringing him deeper into the mattress.

“I’m not alright,” he says after about fifteen seconds of her attention

“What?” She pulls herself onto her knees, dropping him like a livewire. “Was it my teeth?”

“No, no,” he panics. “I’m just going to come in your mouth if you keep doing that.”

Rey, naked and unapologetic, laughs as she continues to stroke him up and down—maybe a little more gently than she had before. 

“You can come if you want to,” she says coyly, bending down again. “Think of it like a competition.”

He sits up to stop her but it’s futile; once she has it in her mind to destroy him, she already has. He leans back into the pillows and tries everything in his power not to think about what is happening right now. He thinks about soccer practice when he was eleven. He thinks about the floral rugs in his grandmother’s bathroom, about shit coffee. He tries to find the wall art but loses himself to the sight of his hands buried in silken waves of brown hair and the curve of her back as she finds a fluid rhythm. 

“No, no, please.” He begs. He knows he’s been begging her long before they’d gotten to this point. He doesn’t want her to stop but he wants to stop her—because he wants to be inside of her in the worst way. He wants to see her face when she feels him, really.

Victory is in Rey’s eyes when she looks up at him. It isn’t snuffed out when he pulls her by the arms to his chest, and flips her down onto the bed beneath him. She writhes under his legs to bring them closer together, chest to chest. 

“Thank you,” he says sincerely. A curtain of his hair is brushing against her glowing cheeks, and he can barely move with the panic growing beneath his ribs. 

“You want to try waking me up again, now?” Rey asks. 

She rolls over onto her stomach and lifts her body to his—catching him by surprise. She’s reaching between them, arching against his body as they meet in slipperiness and shared awkwardness. Her other hand snakes up, again, to grip the back of his head and his hair as she murmurs his name.

One last shred of control reminds him to go slowly, carefully. She’s so tight around him—and wet from his mouth and her own arousal—that whenever she speaks he’s brought further to the brink. 

Everything that follows is a jumble of cries and kisses and the common exploration of their bodies. He doesn’t know how he contains the tightening in his groin, especially when she sits up with him still inside her to better control her movements. There’s no headboard—just a flat, smooth wood installation behind the bed that they both press a palm to as he tries to guide her to the best of his limited knowledge. Her breasts flatten beneath his forearm as he holds her tight, kissing her shoulder and nudging the top of it with his nose. 

Together they find the angle where her legs can press against his and he feels endless inside of her. That’s when all his sense is lost and he can no longer think of anything mundane without it somehow being a sin against her. 

“I’m close,” she says breathily. Rey looks over her shoulder at him and the morning light catches in her whiskey-colored eyes, ruining him forever. “You?”

He’ll never tell her he thinks he might have partially orgasmed minutes ago, but has somehow managed to continue past the sensitivity and confusion for her benefit. The movements of her body against him are helping (as always) to keep the blood from returning to his head.

“Just tell me when,” he gasps. She settles down against him, her forehead pressed against his taut arm. His fingers clench against faux wood to hold them both up. Each cry from her mouth is punctuated by her hair rubbing against his chest as she rolls her head against his skin. He can’t see her face, but he can hear contentment in each of her breaths.

She’s divine. Rey’s body is illuminated by small flares of light from the windows, each refraction a star traveling up and down her spine. Her name escapes his mouth like a repeated mantra, and she locks him into a wave of pleasure as she lowers a hand between her legs to carry them both forward into eternity 

He waits—and he knows he’d wait forever for her to come. She’s so much a part of him in the moment that it happens that he can feel the tremors in her body, originating in her thighs. But it’s not what takes him over the edge. Sated, she still drives her body against his, letting each movement meld them closer together. White noise takes over his brain, mixed with panic and lust and the sense that he’ll never feel whole again without her.

“I love you,” he speaks into her shoulder, hoping she can’t hear him over his own heavy gasps for air.

Rey’s profile smiles softly, her head bumping into his jaw.

“I love you, too,” she whispers, “Ben.” 

Then there’s just blackness streaked with red taking over his vision. He at least has the sense to pull out, and his hand is a traitor as he strokes himself to completion.

He’s unable to look at her in the receding wash of emotion that carries him back to reality. Rey turns around to hold him, head cocked upwards to meet his parted mouth and trail her kisses across his cheek. Her hands fasten around his neck and wander beneath his hair. 

Despite the difference in size their kneeling bodies fit perfectly face-to-face, molded together into one. He doesn’t mind the stickiness as his arms wraps around her slight frame, burying his face into the divot where her neck and shoulder meet. There’s a coldness on his face—liquid evaporating quickly. He’s not sure what’s more humiliating: that he’s crying, or that she’d kissed it away without a word of censure.

“Will you remember that?” she asks in his ear.

He pulls away to look at her face again, blinded by a flash of light from the window. It spears through his brain, fracturing peace and any illusion he might have had that she was there. 

* * *

Ben’s alarm tone is the sound of Millennia’s Ultra. Thank god he’s always had the presence of mind to turn it off when he’s crashed on the couch at HQ, but it’s still damning. His phone refuses to turn off the repeating blast effectas he jabs at it with useless fingers from beneath a gray duvet. 

The over-bright screen mocks him from the corner of his vision. There’s chat notifications and a text from a 212 area code he knows immediately is Adelaide’s even though he’s never bothered to save her contact information out of spite. But there’s something else. It’s something that makes his heart leap into his chest at the sight, a little blue-gray box and alien-ghost Discord icon (the one Caide likes to call the “the old Mickey Mouse pants”). 

> **Rey Sanderson**
> 
> **__** _hey_

_God, he’s been an asshole._

It’s been days since he’s seen her, and in all that time he’s avoided the necessity of reaching out. They hadn’t talked since LA and he can’t imagine what his silence had put her through. He’s been nailed to the floor with the reality that they were never going to have a normal relationship. Not if he wanted to keep his sanity, or his career. At this point he’s sure he’ll lose both.

If that wasn’t bad, he’s been coming into the slow realization that . . . he’s _come_. He hasn’t had—as his junior high school teacher called them—a “nocturnal emission” since he was thirteen. But here he is, perpetual teenager and loser Ben Solo, creaming his pajama pants over the pretty girl who had kicked his ass in his favorite game. He wallows in self-loathing, grateful for the covers and the blackout curtains even though its 5:43am and the New York skyline is still enshrouded in darkness. 

She has to be asleep, he thinks, thumbing at the message to their private chat and scrolling up through the litany of their secret relationship. Weeks flash by, each instant time-stamped and a reminder of pressing pause on the banality of his life. All of it had been to connect with her, and if he died today he’d never regret a single misspelling or a moment spent watching her three dots appear on screen. 

Rey talks like the kind of kid who grew up on Xbox Live and unlimited texting: all winking smiley faces and memes and shorthand for God knows what. But there’s something endearing about her online voice and how it contrasts with the woman he knows . . . the woman who had been in his arms less than a week ago. She hasn’t left him since.

He hadn’t meant to disappear. He’d been so busy eating shitty, overcooked $100 steaks with big shots—the kind who only knew games like Candy Crush or Animal Crossing (because _pay-to-play is the future,_ they all said _)_. Most of those nights he’d slipped into exhaustion with the help of whatever overpriced scotch was foisted on him, without the will to even pick up his phone and check for the latest Twitter hot take about him possibly fucking the enemy. 

Thankfully nothing of the sort had come up—just the secondhand news through pundits that his mom is on a trip to Boston for some Democratic event. It a blessing she’d long given up on contacting her son rather than asking to meet up in NYC for a day off her busy schedule of saving the fucking world. 

He doesn’t want Leia to visit, ever. He imagines his tiny mother in his apartment: those big doe eyes watery as she surveys the king’s empty castle with his overpriced gaming gear and his refrigerator stocked with condiments and a few craft beers. If Rey thought he could cut to the bone with a few words or a look, well, she hadn’t met his mother.

Ben’s chest aches with something heavy as he forces himself out of bed and into the shower. It’s not every morning he bathes before he runs, but then it’s not every day he has a wet dream thinking about the only girl who can still smile at him after seeing his Twitch channel. 

_I can’t do this_ , he thinks as the cold water sluices over his head and washes away all evidence of his obsession.

_We have to end this before we both end up hurt, or dead, or worse—our careers are going to be tanked by becoming the laughingstock of our shitty little social media universe._

Ben knows Snoke eats sentiment for breakfast, probably mixing it in with the shitty green protein shakes Adelaide brings him every morning. He’ll be there to punish any sign that KyloRen gives a shit about something other than the game, and his team—whichever order he’s actually concerned about in that moment.

 _Screw the old man and his lack of humanity_. Thoughts of that shriveled bully and the cold water aren’t working at all, because his mind is back on Rey and her perfect mouth and her warm eyes. The train he’d put her on in LA feels like it had carried her away from him forever. Texting Rey back is what he should be thinking about—but what does one say to the girl of his dreams when he’s left her hanging for days?

 _I’m an idiot_ seems just about right.

He gets out of the shower, drying his skin and hair off with the largest, blackest towel he could find online—the kind that’s still too small. He looks at himself in the mirror and sees just a ghost of the person he thought he’d be at thirty. His hair is plastered around the ears he’s always been self-conscious of, jaw darkened with stubble. He doesn’t bother to shave since the sweat from his run will just irritate it anyway.

 _Do you know about the picture someone took of us? It made it on to Starkiller Reddit, of course. You’re lucky your hair is pulled back in every publicity picture. You’re_ really _lucky those assholes can’t tell two brunettes with smoking-hot bodies apart. They think I sniped Jyn Erso of the Rogues from Cassian Andor. If only I had_ that _kind of pull._

Back at his bureau, he rifles through socks and underwear and comes up with nothing but a lingering sense that it will be a few more days before he can sort out what to actually tell her. He knows he doesn’t actually have that luxury; the need to remind her he still cares burns like a flare in the emptiness where his heart should have been.

_My team knows. Eyja is going to get into a catfight if she ever meets you in person. Apparently no one in the world thinks she’s hot anymore now that you’re the top Striker._

He never relishes the thought of Eyja doing anything, but the notion of Rey taking her down a notch makes him half-hard just thinking about it. He groans into the top of his dresser.

_You’re the top Striker, you’re making me look bad. You make me look bad. You complicate my life. You’re my karmic sabotage for all the stupid rants about nerfed stats. You’re the revenge of the world for slaughtering kid players and laughing while I did it all for an audience of trolls._

His clothes are forgotten beside him on the bed, along with his phone. If he could just put in his earbuds and turn on something loud and thrashing to clear the fog in his brain and the aching in his groin— 

_You’re young, and you’re going to lose. All the hopes and dreams of little girls that they can be the best player in Starkiller is riding on you, and when it comes out that you kissed the asshole who has to beat you to maintain his career, it won’t be pretty._

—but then he’s thrown himself back onto the covers, and the fabric is wicking up the dampness from his hair and all the negativity is dissipating as he thinks how nice it would be if she was curled up beside him just like she’d been that morning in LA. He wants to wake up beside her every morning, not just this one.

_You’ve already beaten me. You’re going to do it again. And again._

His phone continues to pulse with notifications and a silenced alarm and he turns it over facedown on the sheets. He twists in the duvet as every memory of her sleeping beside him, every sound and breath and smell and emotion, cascades over him.

_You’re going to beat me because I want you to._

He holds himself in his hand and shuts his eyes, attempting to clear his mind for the rest of the day. At least for the next few hours, if he’s so lucky. 

_I’ve been thinking about you every day, every hour, possibly every minute. Most seconds. 300,000 or so, if my math isn’t completely gone after burying it in pixels and bad decisions._

For a few minutes more—or maybe it’s just a minute—he imagines her by his side. Sometimes she’s beneath him, but mostly she’s on top, because all he wants is to see her face in bliss. The knowledge that these thoughts will continue endlessly through his sad life seeps in like the cold through his windows. 

Later, he picks up his phone from the bed and types a few words out, erasing them just as quickly when he realizes how early it is for her on the other side of the continent.

 _I miss you,_ he wishes he could say. 

Instead he’ll have to tell her the truth when the sun is high enough to write away his shame: 

> _He knows._

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far, I feel I should let you know that I'm knee-deep into other writing. It's by the blessing of better writers than myself. Just read, and write, and don't be ashamed. Life is too short to do otherwise.


End file.
